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Conference to address challenge posed by George Shultz, April 11-12

Posted April 9, 2003; 11:51 a.m.

by tbartus

A conference on "National Sovereignty and International Institutions" is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, April 11-12, in 104 Computer Science Building. The program will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day. No registration is required, and the conference is free and open to the public.

The conference is a response to a challenge posed by George Shultz, a 1942 Princeton graduate and secretary of state from 1982 to 1989 under President Ronald Reagan. Shultz has asked scholars and statesmen to begin grappling seriously with the tension that exists between an international order based on the principle of state sovereignty and the creation of international tribunals to enforce human rights and to pursue other ends. Among the questions addressed at this conference will be: Are there universal principles of justice? Might international tribunals erode state sovereignty, and therefore self governance, in democratic states?

The conference will begin on Friday with a keynote address by Charles Larmore of the University of Chicago, who will consider the question, "Is Justice Universal?" It will be followed with an address by Shultz at 12:15 p.m. about his reflections on the tensions between international institutions and state sovereignty. Shultz's address is cosponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Other featured speakers at the conference include Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins University, Jack Goldsmith of the University of Chicago, Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, Anne-Marie Slaughter of the Woodrow Wilson School and Jeremy Rabkin of Cornell University.